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The 13 Best Uses of Chainsaws in Video Games
If you’re visiting this site I’m going to go ahead and take a leap of faith by saying a majority of you are insatiable gorehounds. You appetite for all things red and squishy is bottomless. If when the on-screen psycho revs up his chainsaw gets your nether regions aflutter, than this is definitely the list for you.
Other than being one of the most terrifying tools created by man, the chainsaw is also a weapon favored by many an iconic serial killer or out of control madman. The sound it makes is unmistakable, and when you hear it, you know someone’s day is about to get ruined. Head past the break for thirteen of the most bloody and brutal chainsaw appearances in video games. Just make sure you have the stomach for it first. There’s nothing quite as gross as cleaning vomit off a keyboard. Ick.
In the original Doom, the chainsaw was a coveted weapon because of the amount of damage it could deal in a short amount of time. The weapon was even parodied in Doom 3, where a shipment of them was sent to Mars by mistake. How convenient.
I love horror films and I love horror video games, so when the two collide I’m happier than a hobo with a shotgun. In Silent Hill 2, one of, if not the best game in the series, there’s an Easter egg that many gamers might’ve missed. After you’ve completed the game and have a gasoline tank in your possession you can get the chainsaw. Besides being uber-powerful, this chainsaw is extra special because it was modeled after the one in Evil Dead.
Other than being the oldest game on this list, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is also one of the worst. It was just a bad, bad video game, and not just because it didn’t have a robust conversation system or intuitive combat. This is one of the first licensed games to suck, and this tradition has been kept by a plethora of awful licensed releases since. On the positive side, it did let you jump into the tattered shoes of Leatherface and let you stomp around cutting down helpless teens along the way. I feel it deserves some respect because it was banned from many stores for its violent nature, so in a way, it helped pave a way for future violent games to come.
Manhunt is memorable for a number of reasons. It was highly controversial because it let you perform some insanely twisted executions on your unsuspecting enemies. Suffocating someone with a bag over their head was disturbing partly because of how realistic it was at the time, but mostly because it gave you the opportunity to really let loose your inner psycho as you watched your flailing foe slowly go limp. As if that weren’t enough, at one point in the game you get a chainsaw, which many of us then used to kill even more people in unspeakable ways.
I’m just going to go ahead and admit something: I’ve never actually finished a Splatterhouse game. I came pretty damn close to finishing the reboot, but that took every ounce of will and determination I could muster, and I still didn’t finish it. Each game in the series has a chainsaw in it. The first introduced us to Biggy Man, a creature that had dual chainsaws for arms, the sequel (literally) threw a possessed chainsaw at us, and the reboot brings back Biggy Man, only this time around you actually get to use a chainsaw against him.
Continuing the alarming trend of chainsaw arms is MadWorld’s Jack. This overlooked Wii brawler answers that age old question of what exactly is black and white and red all over? It was easy to love because of its fun, over the top, and moderately deranged personality. It’s just unfortunate it came out for a console whose audience had very little interest in it. But because it rewarded you for dispatching your foes in the most creative and fucked up ways possible, it deserves a spot on the list.
This one technically isn’t a chainsaw, but it’s so badass that I just don’t care. Homecoming wasn’t the most memorable Silent Hill so far, mainly because it was just too generic. It’s also not a great sign if a video game franchise inspires a film adaptation, then the games start taking inspiration from the film (I’m looking at you, Resident Evil.). One of the problems with Homecoming was your character, who because of his military training could quickly beat down pretty much any enemy the game through at him. This bothered me until I got the circular saw, and realized how much fun it is to cut down every twisted creature the town sent my way. It also didn’t hurt that the weapon was taken straight out of one of my favorite recent horror films, the French flick High Tension. That severed head scene in the murderer’s truck — anyone who’s watched it should know what I’m talking about — will stick with me forever.
Arguably the biggest selling point, and the only real reason to check out the Dead Rising series is the crazy arsenal of weapons you can use to cut, burn, freeze, blast, bludgeon, and electrify the unrelenting hordes of zombies that are thrown your way. A football bomb? Aww, that’s cute. How about a teddy bear turret? How quaint. What about a motocross bike with dual chainsaws attached to it? Now we’re talking. If this series has taught us anything it’s two things: the first lesson learned is in a zombie apocalypse, a chainsaw is a man’s best friend. The second thing is even a macho zombie slayer can mow down hordes of the undead in 3 inch pumps.
I loved the hell out of 28 Days Later and its sequel, so when Left 4 Dead came out and gave us a taste of the more agile Rage zombie, I was immediately hooked. Then Left 4 Dead 2 took everything to the next level in terms of weapons, where the chainsaw finally made its bloody debut. Sometimes those last few steps to the safe room are the hardest, especially when your team is weak, the ammo is scarce, and there’s a river of zombies coming toward you. The chainsaw remedied this by giving us the chance to cut them down like a hot knife through butter, or better yet, like a chainsaw through an infected’s midsection. Good times.
If you played through the entirety of Dead Island and don’t remember seeing a chainsaw, don’t worry; it’s totally understandable that you missed it. The weapon is actually an Easter egg, and it’s not an easy one to find. In the Jungle level if you look hard enough you’ll come across a shack surrounded by swamplands. Standing in front of this shack is a rather large Thug named Jason. That’s right, fucking Jason Voorhees is in Dead Island. Once you take him out, albeit temporarily because anyone who’s seen a Friday the 13th film knows he’s coming back, you can find his chainsaw in the shack. It would’ve been more fitting to find a unique machete, but I’m not one to complain about a free chainsaw.
In the first Dead Space, I wasn’t entirely sold on the Ripper, but in the second, it ended up being one of my favorite weapons. Because Dead Space 2 is brimming with pint-sized Necromorphs that tend to come at you in packs, the Ripper is a fantastic tool for shredding their scrawny asses quickly. And come on, I mean, what’s cooler than a gun that holds a spinning saw blade in mid-air so all you have to do is hold the trigger and watch the giblets fly? Nothing, that’s what.
While I’m sure an overwhelming majority of us aren’t too fond of the sound a chainsaw makes, I’m positive that Leon Kennedy has grown to fear that buzzing sound more so than a fleet of clowns riding giant charging spiders. I can’t tell you how many times a chainsaw-wielding bag-faced bastard caught me while I was sliding a fresh clip into my gun, forcing me to watch in horror as Leon took a chainsaw blade to the chest.
The Lancer is almost definitely the most iconic chainsaw in all of video games. It’s brutal, efficient, and the chainsaw attachment is exponentially more fun to use than that stupid bullet firing feature the Lancer has. When my grandpa wasn’t telling me how he used to walk five miles in the snow, uphill both ways, to get the mail or somethings, he always told me “It’s way more satisfying listening to the gargled screams of a man as you tear through his spine with a chainsaw!” Also, my grandpa’s a serial murderer.
Now we’re at that part of the article where you call me names and tell me what I missed. Get to it people, I’m ready for your burning hatred.
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We are now one full month into Spring 2024, which kicked off on Tuesday, March 19 and comes to an end with the start of Summer on Thursday, June 20. This year’s summer movie season has a whole bunch of exciting horror highlights, including A Quiet Place: Day One, MaXXXine, and Alien: Romulus, but let’s hold that particular thought until June rolls around.
We’re here today to talk about Spring 2024 and the many horrors we still have left before the weather gets warmer and we find ourselves in the heat of one hell of a spooky summer.
Here are 12 horror movies you don’t want to miss in Spring 2024!
STING – April 12
Two words: SPIDER HORROR. Writer/Director Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood) hopes to induce eight-legged terror with his brand new horror movie Sting, only in theaters April 12.
Of particular note, Sting features practical spider effects from 5-time Academy Award Winner Weta Workshop, with the spider in this one inspired by H.R. Giger’s Xenomorph!
In Sting, “One cold, stormy night in New York City, a mysterious object falls from the sky and smashes through the window of a rundown apartment building. It is an egg, and from this egg emerges a strange little spider. The creature is discovered by Charlotte, a rebellious 12-year-old girl obsessed with comic books. Keeping it as a secret pet, she names it Sting.
“But as Charlotte’s fascination with Sting increases, so does its size. Growing at a monstrous rate, Sting’s appetite for blood becomes insatiable.”
BLACKOUT – APRIL 12
Indie darling Larry Fessenden is back with new horror movie Blackout this Spring, Fessenden’s third movie – following Habit and Depraved – to put his own spin on classic monsters.
While Habit was centered on vampires and Depraved was a fresh take on Frankenstein’s Monster, Larry Fessenden’s Blackout is the filmmaker’s contribution to werewolf cinema.
The film follows Charley, an artist whose drinking binges blur with his sneaking suspicion that he might be a werewolf. He distances himself from those he loves and sinks deeper into solitude, his flashes of memory of his nighttime grisly acts manifested through his artwork.
ARCADIAN – APRIL 12
If Nicolas Cage is covered in blood, you better believe we’re going to be watching. Cage gets his own A Quiet Place with Arcadian, a new creature feature coming to theaters April 12.
In Arcadian, which also comes to Shudder later this year, “After a catastrophic event depopulates the world, a father (Nicolas Cage) and his two sons must survive their dystopian environment while being threatened by mysterious creatures that emerge at night.”
Jaeden Martell (IT 2017) also stars in the post apocalyptic monster movie.
ABIGAIL – APRIL 19
If you’re bummed about Melissa Barrera being fired from the Scream franchise, you’ll definitely want to get out to your local theater this month to support Abigail, the new VAMPIRE BALLERINA horror movie from Scream and Scream VI directors Radio Silence.
Barrera stars alongside fellow horror favorite Kathryn Newton (Freaky) in Abigail, which is actually the latest horror movie in Universal’s relaunched Universal Monsters Universe.
In the film, “After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL – APRIL 19
One of the most talked about horror movies of Spring 2024 has been the Halloween 1977-set Late Night With the Devil, which has been playing in theaters since its premiere on March 22.
Late Night with the Devil will begin streaming at home on April 19, 2024, less than one month after arriving in theaters. Shudder will be the exclusive streaming home of the movie.
David Dastmalchian (Dune, The Suicide Squad) stars as the host of a late-night talk show that descends into a nightmare in Late Night with the Devil, set on Halloween 1977.
In the found footage-style film that captures a period aesthetic, “A live television broadcast in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms.”
INFESTED – APRIL 26
Spring 2024 is all about SPIDERS – sorry, arachnophobes! – with the previously mentioned Sting being followed by the French creature feature Infested (Vermines) later this month.
What’s particularly exciting about Infested is that its director, Sébastien Vaniček, has been hired to direct the next installment in the Evil Dead film franchise, so this will be our first taste of what Vaniček is capable of within the genre. And the buzz for this one is strong.
In his review out of Fantastic Fest last year, for starters, Bloody Disgusting’s own critic Trace Thurman raved that Infested is “one of the best spider attack movies in years.”
In the upcoming horror film, “Fascinated by exotic animals, Kaleb finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap.”
HUMANE – APRIL 26
The daughter of horror master David Cronenberg, Caitlin Cronenberg is making her own mark in the genre filmmaking space with IFC Films’ Humane, coming to theaters this month.
The film is described as “a dystopian satire taking place over a single day, months after a global ecological collapse has forced world leaders to reduce the earth’s population.”
The wild premise? 20% of the world’s population must VOLUNTEER TO DIE!
“In a wealthy enclave, a recently retired newsman has invited his grown children to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program. But when the father’s plan goes horribly awry, tensions flare and chaos erupts among his children.”
I SAW THE TV GLOW – MAY 3
Fresh off the haunting and singularly creepy indie We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, Jane Schoenbrun is back with A24‘s I Saw the TV Glow, releasing only in theaters this May.
Meagan Navarro wrote in her Sundance review for BD, “I Saw the TV Glow offers a layered and authentic portrait of identity, wrapped in ’90s nostalgia and surreal imagery that embeds itself deep into your psyche.” Meagan continues, “Schoenbrun delivers a singular vision of arthouse horror that entrances for its fevered dream style and insanely cool imagery.”
In A24’s latest, “Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.”
TAROT – MAY 3
Originally titled Horrorscope, a much better title if you’re asking me, Screen Gems returns to the big screen with studio horror movie Tarot this Spring, a Tarot-card themed spookshow.
When a group of friends recklessly violates the sacred rule of Tarot readings – never use someone else’s deck – they unknowingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards in the upcoming Screen Gems horror movie Tarot. One by one, they come face to face with fate and end up in a race against death to escape the future foretold in their readings.
The hook for this one? Artist Trevor Henderson designed the film’s eight monsters!
THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1 – MAY 17
Bryan Bertino’s 2008 home invasion classic The Strangers spawns a brand new reboot trilogy this year, with first film The Strangers: Chapter 1 kicking things off in theaters on May 17.
The Strangers: Chapter 2 is expected to follow in Fall 2024.
Madelaine Petsch is the lead of the new reboot trilogy, playing a character who drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest.
When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers.
IN A VIOLENT NATURE – MAY 31
Slasher fans who have been hungry for a new Friday the 13th movie won’t want to miss In a Violent Nature, which plays out like a Friday movie… entirely from Jason’s perspective!
IFC Films will release In a Violent Nature exclusively in theaters on May 31.
In the film, “When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it. The undead golem hones in on the group of vacationing teens responsible for the theft and proceeds to methodically slaughter them one by one in his mission to get it back – along with anyone in his way.”
Meagan Navarro wrote in her Sundance review for Bloody Disgusting, “In a Violent Nature may offer slasher thrills and a delightfully gory rampage across the wilderness, but the approach captures the carnage through ambient realism. It results in a fascinating arthouse horror experiment that plays more like a minimalist slice-of-life feature with a grim twist.”
THE WATCHERS – JUNE 14
M. Night Shyamalan returns with the new thriller Trap this coming August, but the road to that film’s release will be paved by the feature debut of his daughter, Ishana Night Shyamalan.
Ishana Night directed The Watchers, in theaters from WB/New Line on June 14.
The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.
Which Spring 2024 horror movies are YOU most looking forward to?
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